We visited Borderlands in Kithulgala, Sri Lanka during our DP orientation trip. This trip was truly unforgettable. I went there with high expectations as it was my first time and all my friends who had gone before said that it was loads of fun and believe me they weren’t exaggerating one bit. I connected with many of my classmates and got to know some of them even better than I already did, the duration of the trip was 3 days and it was 3 days packed with physical activity. On this trip, I learned many things such as how to work collaboratively as a group and to take more risks such as jumping off a 10-meter cliff.

The first activity we did when we first arrived was canyoning. But first, we were introduced to the basic rules by our guide such as double tapping your helmet to let the guides know we were okay and always staying low when walking on the rocks by the river due to the rocks being slippery. After learning the basic rules we started ascending down the canyon and I was SUPER excited, Our guide separated our class into groups and so my group was Stephie, Zoe, Sofia, Yethmin, and Dimath. As we started ascending down the canyon I bonded with Stephie and Zoe about a variety of things such as movies and school. After tons of mini jumps and jokes, we arrived at a 5m cliff which everyone was jumping off of. So Ben, Ansel, and I asked the guide if we could backflip off of it (don’t tell my mum) and he said we could do it so Ben went first and then I went after him and I successfully landed the backflip which was one of my highlights of the trip as I took a risk. After we finished canyoning we went White Water Rafting which was really fun, our raft got stuck 2 times through the drops although as a group we jumped up and down and the raft kept moving. The most fun drop was the level 3 drop as our raft was flooded with water which was truly one of the best group bonding experiences I had.

The second day we hiked down the Marvel Canyon and since it was my first time I had no idea what it was like but after successfully hiking it, I can tell you it was TRULY AMAZING. It was like the canyoning we did the previous day although this time we had a 10m cliff jump, I didn’t realize how high 10m was until I reached there but jumping down was definitely one of the best experiences ever. Our whole class did the jump and it was truly a bonding moment between our class as we all motivated each other to jump down and applauded one another for jumping. After jumping down we went to eat lunch, and believe me LUNCH WAS SOO GOOD, I’m probably exaggerating but trust me at that moment it tasted so good, it probably tasted better because I was super hungry but it was really good. After we returned to the camp, I took a shower, and then a group of us played this card game called Werewolf (Similar to Mafia) which I won 💪🏾.

On the last day, we went on a hike to a cave which was enjoyable as I love hiking. Me and Darius had a race to the top which was really fun and then we found a Green Pit Viper and a Hump Nose Lizard which were both rare and endemic. After the hike, we went back to the camp to get ready to leave and eat lunch, and believe me the lunch on the last day which consisted of yellow rice, eggplant, Dahl and more was by far the best lunch I had on the trip and I was so bummed we had to leave early because I couldn’t go back for thirds but overall I had tons of fun and it was truly one of the best experiences of my life.